Why is B-flat noted as B and B noted as H in German?
Bb was the first accidental discovered. At some point between roughly the 8th and 11th century, some unknown composer used the sequence F-G-A-B. When the choir sang it, they sang something different from B… the pitch we now call Bb, because it was easier to sing.
They didn’t call this pitch H, because that would have put the alphabet out of order. Instead, they still called it B but used the term musica ficta (Latin for “false music”). Music that actually used the B pitch was musica recta (“right music”).
Eventually, it became useful to use different notation for each of the two pitches. That’s the B rotundum (Latin for “round B”) and B quadratum (“square B). These could be indicated by writing a lower case b two different ways:
The first symbol above isn’t the way they wrote it then - they used a round head to the “b”… but it evolved into what you see, our modern flat symbol. The second symbol is the square b, and it’s believed that a penmanship error in the 15th century turned it into what is now our natural sign.
These weren’t the only terms that could describe the two different Bs. In the 11th century, Guido d’Arezzo categorized hexachords (the six-note tone sets used in Gregorian chant) into three groups. The set from C to A was the hexachordum naturale, or natural hexachord (which has no B at all), the set from F to D was the hexachordum molle (soft hexachord, because singers tended to sing the B as Bb), and the set from G to E was the hexachordum durum (hard hexachord, because the B was sung as written). So the B notes also become known as B molleand B durum for the hard and soft B.
There are two proposed reasons how H got in there. One is that in the earliest days before it was even called musica ficta, some people called it by the next letter name. The other is that penmanship thing again - that a written B quadratum had too light a cross-stroke at the bottom, and was interpreted as “h”. As far as I know, there’s no hard evidence to support either… it’s speculation.
The earliest German work that I’ve been able to find is the Musica instrumentalis Deudch, printed in 1529. The “h” was clearly in use then:
On each line, you can see b (B flat) followed by b quadratum (B natural), followed by the German h (B natural again).
So we know when it got started (between about 1200 and 1529), and there are a couple of plausible explanations for its origin. Why have they kept it? Because of national pride - it allows the series Bb-A-C-B to be read as “Bach”. BACH motif - Wikipedia; Noten Scannen
Original post here //-+-\ View these musical instruments on eBay!
izzy806
2087
ellievsbear
areudirty
prguitarman
snowghoul
